[Silence Keeps Me A Victim] How to turn procedure into dice mechanics?

[Clyde L. Rhoer]

Hi Folks,

I'm a bit stuck on my game, "Silence Keeps Me A Victim," and want to get some feedback. Previous posts about the game are:

• What is possible to achieve with game design(Adult with some vulgarities)
• Narration limits and General Feedback
• How to properly use Metaphor

The game is about Children who live in a fairy tale land where their voices are stolen from them as babies. They slowly have the color drained from them over many years, turning Grey until they disappear around age 13.

The children have, or gain through play these attributes: Mask, Voice, Shame, and Pride. Here's what each attribute does for the first Act. Mask allows the children to hide their Pride from the Abuser, Voice allows the children to gain the ability to speak, Shame is used by the Abuser or other players to take away dice from the player (I think), and Pride makes the child a focus for the Abusers abuse. I think each child starts at Mask 5, Voice 0, Shame 1, and Pride 0. The first act is over when a child reaches Voice 5, and gains the ability to speak.

The problem I'm having is I know what I want to do procedurally but I can't turn the procedure into dice mechanics.

So here's the procedure:

• The Abuser (Gamemaster) sets a scene where something bad will happen without the children's intervention.
  
• Some dice are chosen by color to try to win one or several options. I think the Abuser needs some kind of power that lets him perhaps fiddle with the players dice on a limited scale.
• Those dice from the previous step are rolled and the winner of each outcome is now apparent. You can win, you can narrate, or you can declare. We will call these people the Winner, the Narrator, and the Declaror.
• The Winner if a child gains one point in Pride and one point in Voice. They also lose one point in Mask. If the Abuser wins all the children gain one Shame.
• The Narrator describes what we see happen and how the Winner wins.
• The Narrator assigns exterior traits. Exterior traits are physical descriptions based off their narration of the scene.
• The Declaror describes how we feel about what happens.
• The Declaror assigns interior traits. Interior traits are emotional descriptions based off the narration of the scene.
• The Declaror must assign at least one shame to one of the children (PC's), but can assign shame to all of them. (I'm thinking it might be more appropriate to make the amount of shame that has to be distributed based on the resolution somehow) If the Abuser is the Declaror they do not assign shame at this stage.
• The Winner can assign a point of Voice to the other children if a player, or Mask if the Abuser.

So what I would like to talk about is:

• In general how folks come up with mechanics for their games?
• Ideas for what mechanics might look like for Act one. (keep in mind I may take what you offer)
• Clarification about the procedure or attributes.

For folks who have been following the game, I cut out the community. I thought the game had more power with the Abuser as the thing that is the community. Sort of like an abusive father, remove him and all the trauma starts coming to the surface. I'm thinking that's Act two, or Act three.

[contracycle]

What is the relationship between the winning, narrating, or declaring?  Is it a case of winning the roll, and then choosing which I want?  Or, does the mechanic hand out these titles as a result of resolution?  Related to that, how many parties to the conflict are there, and can a single person have more than one title?

[Clyde L. Rhoer]

Hi Contracycle,

The titles are handed out as a result of the resolution, and a person can gain more than one title, it should be somewhat difficult to get two titles, and nearly impossible to get all three. The way I see it working there would be different colored dice that the players would choose from or be alloted somehow. So for instance you might roll black dice to win, red to narrate, and blue to declare.

[Simon_Pettersson]

It's pretty harsh how the children are weakened no matter if they win (lose Mask and gain Pride) or lose (gain Shame), but they do get closer to their goal of five Voice when winning, so it's a pretty smart solution. I'm guessing it's pretty easy to beat the Abuser in the beginning, but it gets harder the closer you get to your goal. Nicely done.

As to how people come up with mechanics, here's a very loose guide to one way of approaching the problem. This is hardly a "method" or even "the way I do it". More of "one way I sometimes do it".

First, you've come a long way specifying what sorts of things you want from your mechanic. That's a helluva start, always start by specifying the problem before thinking of any solutions. I'd start tinkering with ways of throwing the dice. Basically, what you need, if I understand you correctly, is a dice (or card, or other) method which allows:

• At least two sources of input (Pride and the Abuser), possibly more (Shame and Mask)
• Three types of output (a winner, a narrator and a declaror)

There's a good place to start. Now brainstorm different ways of throwing dice, or drawing cards, or flipping coins, or whatever. Example of a dice mechanic could be:
Throw X number of dice and count the number which are Y or over.
You've definitely got two sources of input (X and Y), and a possible third (the type of dice, but fiddling with that too much can demand a lot of dice). Mask and Shame could come into play by modifying the number of dice or the target number. As for the output, I can see some: Highest number of successes, of course. And highest single die (they should probably explode to prevent too many ties). As for a third output, that's a bit more difficult. There's the lowest die, of course. Or maybe most number of equals (like, three ones beats two fives).

Now, when you've brainstormed different mechanics (don't criticize them, accept them all), set them up in a grid. On one axis, put the methods, and on the other, your criteria for a good method, like "input methods", "speed", "comprehensibility", etc. If some of these factors are more important, you can weigh them, say by 1-3. Now grade every method on these criteria, say 1-5. Multiply each grade by the weight of the criteria for a result of 1-15 points in each category, then add up every method's score. There's a good objective way of looking at the methods. Also, do take a look at the ones that got really high scores in some category, but failed in others. See if you can improve them, or combine them with another method to make a super-method. Like, use two different values and roll the first one in D10s and the second in D6s. You have another input method, and a way of making the one input more powerful than the other. Just watch out that the combined solutions don't grow too complex. Put them in the grid and grade them, to see if they win out over the previous winner.

[Yakk]

Do you want resource management between rounds?

Within rounds -- should someone be able to bias towards becoming the Declarer?

How do the players express their choices?  (IE, saying what they want to happen, saying what they want their child to do, picking from some set of options?)

Or do you want the result to be a distribution determined by the situation/stats of the children?

Does the Abuser have any resources/stats separate from the children?

What kind of tasks and contests are we talking about, or are we open ended?

Is the Abuser personified somehow within the milieu, or is it a player-role and not a character-role?

[Simon C]

RE: The Abuser's role in "messing with" the PC's dice rolls:

I'm not sure if this is useful to you, and I'm sorry I can't be more helpful with what you actually want to talk about, but what immediately came to mind about this was that the Abuser shouldn't take away the PCs' dice, the Abuser should give the PCs dice. These dice could be a different colour to the regular ones, and using them to win can maybe make the Abuser the narrator or the declarer, or maybe give the PCs extra shame.  As the PCs succeed more, they get more dice of their own, and don't need to use the Abuser's dice, they can then say "no thankyou!" when offered dice.  Maybe being able to refuse dice, and using just your own is controlled by one of your stats? Maybe pride?

Here's an example of how that might work in practice:
The Abuser declares a conflict, and all the PCs who are involved gather up their dice.  They get dice based on their traits, maybe one dice for every point of Mask, and one dice from the Abuser for every point of Shame.  A player can choose to refuse one Abuser dice for every point they have in Pride. (Does your game have any other traits?) Everyone rolls their dice.  Anyone who's Abuser dice shows a six gets a point in shame.  After that, whoever rolled the most sixes gets to choose their role - winner, narrator, declarer.  If someone is tied for most sixes, go by who has the most fives, then the most fours, and so on.  If anyone has their highest dice as Abuser dice, then the Abuser gets to choose a role instead, so the Abuser can be the winner, the narrator, or the declarer.

This ruleset doesn't have any rules for Voice, but I think that's going to be a pretty important decision.  You might want to have voice be a third kind of dice, that can counteract others' Abuser dice in some way?

I'm uncomfortable with the role of the Declarer in deciding how the PCs feel about their actions, but maybe this is an imortant part of the effect you're trying to create? I think your game is in difficult territory, because part of what you're trying to do is take away the players' control over how their PC feels, which is usually a bad thing in narrativist RPGs, but in your game is a good thing. 

Hope this is helpful,

Simon

[contracycle]

The titles are handed out as a result of the resolution, and a person can gain more than one title, it should be somewhat difficult to get two titles, and nearly impossible to get all three. The way I see it working there would be different colored dice that the players would choose from or be alloted somehow. So for instance you might roll black dice to win, red to narrate, and blue to declare.

OK.  So the players will engage in the conflict with different resource types, and those resource types will largely determine what title they end up with, if any.

Would having all three be a good thing, if it could be pulled off?  I recognise this will make the most impact overall, but I am wondering if there is any representative significance.

Is there a reason I would aim for a title other than that of Winner?  Or do you see it as the player being given, as opposed choosing for some positive reason, those resource types?

[Clyde L. Rhoer]

Hi Simon P.,

You're right about it being harsh that the children are weakened in Act one. I'm not sure how easy it is to beat the Abuser at one thing, but I want it to be as difficult for the Abuser to win three things as it is for the children, but easier for the Abuser to win a single thing.

You said:

Basically, what you need, if I understand you correctly, is a dice (or card, or other) method which allows:

    * At least two sources of input (Pride and the Abuser), possibly more (Shame and Mask)
    * Three types of output (a winner, a narrator and a declaror)

I'm feeling a bit slow here, can you expand on why you see those as the inputs? I'm not disagreeing with you necessarily, I just don't understand how you come to that conclusion. I'm thinking about inputs and seeing nothing at the moment, so if you can expand that may help things click for me.



Hi Yakk,

I'm afraid I may be a bit wishy washy on your questions. Since I haven't been having much luck thinking about mechanics, I'm not completely sure what I want. So here we go. Your questions are in italics.

Do you want resource management between rounds?

Maybe leaning towards yes.

Within rounds -- should someone be able to bias towards becoming the Declarer?

Yes. I want folks to be able to try to focus on one particular choice if they like. I think that it should be a good strategic option to focus on one. Focusing on more than one title should be more risky, obviously yielding more reward if sucessful.

How do the players express their choices?  (IE, saying what they want to happen, saying what they want their child to do, picking from some set of options?)

With the dice. The players are not allowed to speak in Act one, unless narrating or declaring.

Or do you want the result to be a distribution determined by the situation/stats of the children?

The children all start with the exact same stats. Maybe it's good to use those stats. I mean they're already sitting there right? I'll admit though until this point I've really only seen the stats as a result of resolution, not a factor into resolution. I'm not opposed to the idea, but I'm unsure how I would weigh them towards the three titles. I'll have to think on this some more. The idea of the distribution of dice being decided by the children's situation is very intriguing. I don't exactly understand what you mean by that though. Can you explain how you see distribution of dice being determined by situation?

Does the Abuser have any resources/stats separate from the children?

I think he has the ability to fiddle with dice somehow.  I really hadn't thought about his stats until now, but he wouldn't have Mask, or Shame, but could have Voice, and Pride.

What kind of tasks and contests are we talking about, or are we open ended?

Open ended I think. It's basically conflict resolution with a few twists. Perhaps I'm not understanding the question?

Is the Abuser personified somehow within the milieu, or is it a player-role and not a character-role?

The Abuser is real in the fiction, he's a little boy around 8 or 9 in a red and white striped shirt, and jean shorts. His appearance contrasts greatly to the children whose appearance would be more tribal looking. The Abuser is also a player role (Gamemaster).



Hi Simon C.,

Cool idea! I really like the idea of the Abuser offering tainted fruit to the players. I'm going to use that somehow, and those dice will be black. I'll have to give more consideration to the way you see using these dice. Thanks.

I think you are totally right about declaration being difficult territory. I'm seeing this as using 'my guy' tendencies to somewhat capture a feeling of victimization. That's why the game is also a railroad in Act One. Add in the silence and I hope Act One is a bit frustrating, leading to a feeling of liberation once the voice is regained. Deliberately pushing towards deprotagonization may be a bad idea to do with a game. I'm hoping the set up leads to the protaginization of the characters and players in Act Two. I'm excited to see what kind of feedback positive and negative I get once the game is in playtest.



Hi Contracycle,

Yes. The players will have different resource types, and those types will determine what title they may end up with if any. I don't have a problem with someone getting all three titles, as long as that's a difficult option. I don't understand what you mean by representative significance?

I think the goals should have different "pulls" and should cause people to go for different titles. So if you always win. It's likely you won't get to talk or define your character. In Act One players can only speak if narrating, or declaring. If you think of Act One as a playable character creation this would mean you have no input into your character. Your character is cool because they did all the winning, but was actually created by other people. You can also get really screwed on declaration. I expect wanting to have input to counterbalance wanting to win. To better answer your last question I think players should be choosing different titles to shoot for.

[Clyde L. Rhoer]

I just had a cool idea based on Simon C's Black dice, and stealing from "Don't Rest Your Head." What if I set it up so the Abuser gives the players Black dice based on their Mask, and making it so that the players dice are all basically the same. This would make it difficult to know you are going to win without bringing in more dice. After the dice are rolled the Abuser uses the total Black dice to determine what he is doing. So it might look like this:

I have three red dice (Win), three blue dice (narrate), and three yellow dice (declare). and a mask of 5 so I have 5 black dice. I roll all these dice, 14 dice, woo hoo! I tally the results. Let's say a 4 or higher is a success. I end up having 2 red's, 1 blue, 3 yellow, and 2 black for successes. The Abuser has two also. (Or he rolled 5 and has his own success total) Now I decide where to put my Black dice, perhaps one at a time, while trying to figure out my neighbors strategy. This means I can go to beat all of them, or try to work with them, but have no way to communicate. Imagine this with a mask on, likely your vision is obscured so you may have to move your head around to see what other players are doing. How suspicious is that?

I think the abuser might need to commit dice each turn, to keep it somewhat interesting. That way the Abuser can't just total up the players total and use the black dice to completely take most everything.

I really like the idea that the Abuser will be powered by competitiveness, and Mask. Are there any problems I'm not seeing?

[Clyde L. Rhoer]

Hi folks,

I went ahead and started playtesting, so if you had further comments to make could you please make them here? Thanks again everyone for the help and getting me past my bump.